Report OIO No. 13-01-11-OFT: Audit of the Office of Finance and Treasury’s Cashiering Operations at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Vital Records, and the Rhode Island Avenue DMV, dated September 19, 2013.

Current Status

Closed.

Chief Risk Officer’s Risk Assessment

The Inherent Risk associated with the collections of monies across the District is classified as High risk. The OCFO recognizes the importance of its cash collections and placed particular emphasis on OIO’s three recommendations. It is of note that the conclusion of the audit there were “no cash deficiencies noted.”

Recommendations Overview

OIO provided three recommendations, and all three were implemented in an effort to strengthen internal controls.

There are proper internal control procedures in place at St. Elizabeth's cashiering site for recording and monitoring patient funds. The hospital's accounting department purchased the QuickBooks general ledger system for the OFT cashiers to record activity of each patient's funds. Hospital management has designated a specific person to receive a monthly report from the QuickBooks system listing each patient's account balance and property held by OFT. It is agreed that an additional level of review from hospital staff monthly of the patients' account balances and property is warranted as an additional control activity. OFT will also include a review of the report in its monthly and quarterly audit procedures.

Each cashiering site will be monitored more closely for adherence to the Remote Deposit Capture procedures for shredding checks after the image file is transmitted to the Bank. As part of the monthly and quarterly audit by OFT management, continued compliance will be monitored.

The Rhode Island DMV location is depositing its receipts timely and accurately. At the time of the audit, this location was in its first month of operation. The armored courier mistakenly delivered the DMV deposits to Wells Fargo Bank instead of Citibank. Subsequently, the deposits were returned to the Rhode Island location, held for clarification by the courier, and re-routed to the correct bank. Instructions to the courier were clarified. During that time, the OFT cashiers utilized the Log Book to reflect returned deposits, redeployed deposits and initial deposits that were not clearly labeled as such. The Cashier Operations Supervisor established a procedure to clearly reflect each deposit type, if such an event occurs again. All deposits were accounted for and properly credited to the correct DMV account.